I thought this was well known? this puts us in termoil as PC gamers though surely, sign up to something you don't agree with (origin's EULA) and effectively financially back the only studio that's put out a ground-breaking DX11 FPS....

Or dont buy it and risk the death of high end gaming development?

I didn't realise you had to have Origin with a shop-bought copy? my plan was to buy the disc and avoid origin that way, but if that's not possible it'll have to be an -avoid- title i guess.

I thought this was well known? this puts us in termoil as PC gamers though surely, sign up to something you don't agree with (origin's EULA) and effectively financially back the only studio that's put out a ground-breaking DX11 FPS....

Or dont buy it and risk the death of high end gaming development?

I didn't realise you had to have Origin with a shop-bought copy? my plan was to buy the disc and avoid origin that way, but if that's not possible it'll have to be an -avoid- title i guess.

Soon it will transpire that for every customer Origin gains they drown a puppy.

I feel like a sellout putting my fingers in my ears and going "LAlalalalalalaal" over this origin nonsense. I normally don't buy the games if I don't like the terms, like always on DRM but by god i'm loving BF3 and I want to continue playing it.

I must say though, EA has done an impressive job of turning one of my most anticipated games of the year into one I wouldn't touch with a 10ft pole with the amount of **** they think they can get away with (no mod support, woeful server browser system, compulsory Origin installation, no Steam etc. etc.).

It's a bit silly to hate on BF3 to rebel against Origin, it's just a delivery platform that's been (presumably) forced by EA.

Hi. No its not just a delivery platform unfortunately. The big issue is that in the Terms you need to agree to so that Origin would be installed, theres a whole load of stuff about pretty much accessing whatever they wanted on your drive and distributing it if they wanted amongst their partners. Heres a link http://t.co/cwoGUyW9
If they have now retracted all that nonsense, then I may actually buy BF3. Its not a case of having anything to hide, its a case of its my PC so keep your nose out.
Please correct me if Im wrong.

It's a bit silly to hate on BF3 to rebel against Origin, it's just a delivery platform that's been (presumably) forced by EA.

Hi. No its not just a delivery platform unfortunately. The big issue is that in the Terms you need to agree to so that Origin would be installed, theres a whole load of stuff about pretty much accessing whatever they wanted on your drive and distributing it if they wanted amongst their partners. Heres a link http://t.co/cwoGUyW9
If they have now retracted all that nonsense, then I may actually buy BF3. Its not a case of having anything to hide, its a case of its my PC so keep your nose out.
Please correct me if Im wrong.

That part of the EULA got changed a good while back but even in it's original guise it never said that EA would be accessing whatever they wanted on your PC and sharing it with third parties. It may have been possible to interpret it that way thanks to some poor wording choices but it remained nothing more than an interpretation/guess about what EA would do.

Quote:

Originally Posted by smc8788

compulsory Origin installation, no Steam

So being forced to install Origin is bad but it'd be fine if people were forced to install Steam instead?

Originally Posted by A clever bloke called Mitsuhiko on the reddit forums

Yay. Conspiracies. So let's see what Origin really does, shall we?
If you hook process monitor onto Origin you will not see Origin scanning anything, independently of how long you use it. So what triggered the OP's screenshot?
Origin on installation will try to find games installed on your harddrive and automatically register them within Origin. It does that in a couple of different ways:
It reads the windows games registry
It looks for games in Program Files
It looks for games in ProgramData (where, for unknown reason the OP's SMS and tax software are storing the data instead of the user profile where that data should go!)
it reads the xfire config if it finds one for games
If you look at the screenshot closely you will see that it does not actually read any files. Instead it looks for their existence and recursively walks the directory. It does not read any of your files, at least not judging from this screenshot or anything I have found on my machine.
Lastly if you monitor the network traffic that Origin causes you will see that it does not transmit anything of value to EA. So far I have not seen anything bug login credentials being submitted.
But it's always so much more fun to assume that software is inherently evil. You can hook a syscall monitor on any application and you will see that it operates all over the drive. That's not something unique to Origin. Steam will do the same if you click the "add non steam game" button.
//EDIT: something I forgot: I think people should not run any sysinternals tools without a basic understanding of what they do or at least not jump to conclusions..

It's a bit silly to hate on BF3 to rebel against Origin, it's just a delivery platform that's been (presumably) forced by EA.

Hi. No its not just a delivery platform unfortunately. The big issue is that in the Terms you need to agree to so that Origin would be installed, theres a whole load of stuff about pretty much accessing whatever they wanted on your drive and distributing it if they wanted amongst their partners. Heres a link http://t.co/cwoGUyW9
If they have now retracted all that nonsense, then I may actually buy BF3. Its not a case of having anything to hide, its a case of its my PC so keep your nose out.
Please correct me if Im wrong.

That part of the EULA got changed a good while back but even in it's original guise it never said that EA would be accessing whatever they wanted on your PC and sharing it with third parties. It may have been possible to interpret it that way thanks to some poor wording choices but it remained nothing more than an interpretation/guess about what EA would do.

These are the terms below, have they been changed?:
You agree that EA may collect, use, store and transmit technical and related information that identifies your computer (including the Internet Protocol Address), operating system, Application usage (including but not limited to successful installation and/or removal), software, software usage and peripheral hardware, that may be gathered periodically to facilitate the provision of software updates, dynamically served content, product support and other services to you, including online services. EA may also use this information combined with personal information for marketing purposes and to improve our products and services. We may also share that data with our third party service providers in a form that does not personally identify you. IF YOU DO NOT WANT EA TO COLLECT, USE, STORE, TRANSMIT OR DISPLAY THE DATA DESCRIBED IN THIS SECTION, PLEASE DO NOT INSTALL OR USE THE APPLICATION. This and all other data provided to EA and/or collected by EA in connection with your installation and use of this Application is collected, used, stored and transmitted in accordance with EA’s Privacy Policy located at www.ea.com. To the extent that anything in this section conflicts with the terms of EA’s Privacy Policy, the terms of the Privacy Policy shall control.

So much for EA changing. Only thing they changed was into a second rate activison (who's games I currently boycott). Was looking forward to getting BF3 but guess I won't risk it and just avoid. I'm already pissed at them getting kicked off steam and its probably because Valve didn't allow this sort of practice.
Who wants to bet mass effect 3 will be the same?

So much for EA changing. Only thing they changed was into a second rate activison (who's games I currently boycott). Was looking forward to getting BF3 but guess I won't risk it and just avoid. I'm already pissed at them getting kicked off steam and its probably because Valve didn't allow this sort of practice.
Who wants to bet mass effect 3 will be the same?

They didn't get kicked off Steam. They refused to use Steam thanks to Valve's policies on DLC. Policies which can be proven to exist due to the fact they have also caused the developer of Minecraft to refuse to use Steam to sell Minecraft. As for whatever "practice" you're claiming Valve wouldn't allow them to do you should take a look at the post Baz has posted which does a great job of explaining what Origin actually does in terms of accessing your PC.

The problem is, unlike Steam, which only scans your computer if you ask it to - either to add non-Steam games to your list, or by taking part in the Steam hardware survey - Origin appears to scan your system during installation at sends information based on what it finds, before it's even shown you the EULA which tells you that it will do so.

So it fits pretty solidly into my definition of malware/spyware - doing something I potentially don't want it to do, before it's even asked me, potentially resulting in a privacy violation.

Also, if EA want to calm this storm, I would suggest that they tell us exactly what Origin uploads - and to whom. Of course, that would only calm the storm if Origins data uploads are completely benign... and given EA's reticence to detail what Origin is doing and who it's giving data to... I can understand the concern.

Thanks for the link. Unfortunately, it still is not clear what Applications and Software it monitors. Its all rather vague and my trust in EA is pretty low since this all started. Until things become clearer I'll not be installing anything requiring Origin.